Imagine, if you would, an 18 year-old kid, fresh out of basic and advanced individual training, firing his rifle at charging Japanese soldiers during a vicious night banzai attack on Guadalcanal. Or maybe he’s in the ball turret of a B-17 somewhere over Germany, frantically firing at the German fighters chasing his plane. Perhaps he’s standing in the middle of a snowstorm in the Ardennes Forest yelling for a medic as his best friend slowly bleeds to death, or about to abandon ship somewhere in the South Pacific because a Japanese submarine torpedoed his vessel.

Imagine a young woman in the Nursing Corps comforting a dying man she knows she can’t save in the ruins of a hospital-turned improvised aid station somewhere in France. Or a mother, proudly flying a star in her window, learning from a telegram from the War Department that her son is never coming home.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, commemorating 99 years since the last guns of World War I fell silent. It was dubbed the “War to End All Wars,” as none who went through it could fathom the idea of another war so terrible.

But a mere 21 years later, it started again, and what followed made the “Great War” pale in comparison.

Those that were called to fight World War II found themselves far away in places so different from home they may as well have been a different planet. They were the children of the Great Depression, used to doing more with less and getting the most use out of anything. They faced seemingly insurmountable odds against well-trained, determined enemies. Tom Brokaw dubbed them “The Greatest Generation.”

And now, the Greatest Generation is gradually disappearing.

Everyday, there are fewer and fewer World War II veterans, for even those that toppled the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire can’t escape the hand of time. I’ve been fortunate that my grandfather, George John Stoll, III, now 91, is still with us. A World War II veteran, my grandfather joined the Army at 18 in 1944. He was sent to the Philippines in 1945 and picked up by the Americal (short for Americans in New Caledonia) Infantry Division at a replacement depot.

Although the Japanese still had a military presence in the Philippines at that time, he was never in combat. He finished his service performing occupation duty in Yokohama, Japan, before being discharged in 1946.

But it wasn’t until after the passing of other family members that I learned about their war stories. For example, my father’s uncle, PFC Robert Madere of the 29th Infantry Division, survived the horror of Omaha Beach on D-Day only to walk with a limp the rest of his life courtesy of a German MG-42 machine gun hiding in a hedgerow outside St. Lo, France. My mother’s uncle, Sgt. Jacob Pabst of the First Armored Division, had a German artillery shell land next to him during combat in Tunisia. Fortunately, it was a dud and didn’t explode. He was later wounded during the offensive to capture Rome and sent home.

As I grew older, my interest in World War II history increased. While I was in college, I volunteered for the Library of Congress’s “Veterans History Project,” a collective effort to record and preserve the stories of veterans. I heard many tales, such as that of a replacement soldier assigned to the 29th Infantry Division who was eager for a souvenir. He saw a German helmet and decided to take it home, only to discover the previous owner’s head was still in it. Another story came from a neighbor who lived down the street from me when I lived in Georgia. As a green private in the 86th Infantry Division in 1945, he recalled that as the division was pushing into Germany, he heard an explosion and immediately hit the ground. He then heard someone say, “Get up, son. That explosion was miles away.” He looked up to see General George S. Patton standing over him.

They may be seemingly insignificant stories, but for those that lived them, they were life-altering experiences. Many men came home suffering from what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, unwilling to talk about what happened lest they should relive it. Some took their stories to the grave, while others, like my father’s uncle, only talked about the war to other veterans.

But others were willing to talk, so long as there was somebody to listen. And now, as we approach Veteran’s Day, I encourage every one to listen, especially the younger generation. You may realize that your grandparents and great-grandparents are a lot cooler and tougher than you think.

General Douglas MacArthur once said, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” And now that the Greatest Generation is fading away, it up to us, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to make sure their stories do not.

And when he goes to Heaven, to St. Peter he will tell, “One more solder reporting, sir. I’ve served my time in Hell.”

Michael Stoll can be reached at mike.stoll@austindailyherald.com